Can I disable Dash and HUD hotkeys when fullscreen (in DOSBox)?

I'd like to know if its possible to disable the global hotkeys (Start and Alt) for Unity features while running applications in fullscreen under DOSBox.

If possible, it would be nice to disable them for all applications running fullscreen, but DOSbox is my specific use-case.

I'm otherwise completely happy with HUD and Dash.

The issue manifests as follows:

1. Start DOSBox in fullscreen mode

2. Hitting Alt-X (or whatever) is delivered to the game as appropriate, but if you hesitate or change your mind and just release alt you get flipped out of DOSBox fullscreen to display the HUD. This involves a change of screen resolution so is quite slow.

3. Hit ESC to exit HUD and exhibit another screen-resolution change, which is rather frustrating.

Solution 1:

I found that the HUD (ALT) and Ubuntu Menu (SUPER) keys are very annoying for any application... so the way I fixed this was changed the keybinds to something a bit more appropriate for me. This might help you, so I'm going to outline how I did this:

First you need to install a program to manage Unity and other Compiz settings called "CompizConfig Settings Manager:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

1. Run CompizConfig Setting Manager, by looking for it in the Dash (Ubuntu's Main Menu).
2. Under the Desktop section, look for Ubuntu Unity Plugin, and click on it.
3. Change the values you need. The button you need to press is next to the titles I give below:
   • Key to show the HUD - I disabled the HUD, but you could use: CTRL + ALT instead.
   • Key to show the Launcher - I changed this to CTRL + Super, however it shows ControlPrimarySuper - this is fine, since CTRL+Super still works as it should. Pick whatever you feel comfortable using.
4. Click the Back key when your done. Please note changes above should change instantly.

The main reason I did this too, was because I like freeing up my Super key to be able to do other shortcuts. For example Super+T = Terminal, Super+g = Gedit, Super+c = Chrome, Super+PrtScn = grab section of the screen (for taking screenshots). If you want to set something like this... then the section is called "General" and the button to press is "Commands". Please leave "Command Line 0" as blank, I noticed mine has a key binding of Mod2Escape - and wasn't sure if this was important for anything, so I started from "Command Line 1".

Hope this helps you.

Solution 2:

I don't have any experience with the application but based on its description you might try to work it out with Cuttlefish. "Cuttlefish is an event driven tool that will adapt the appearance and settings of your system according to the environment"

Install via the terminal with:

sudo apt-get install cuttlefish

or using the Software Center